Lives of Darwin in the evolution of biography.

[摘要] This thesis focuses on a selection of biographical treatments of Charles Darwin datingfrom 1887 to 1991, and through these explores certain shifts in the purposes andassumptions of biography since the Victorian period.An introductory discussion of problematic features in standard histories ofbiography is followed by an overview of the biographical material that surroundsDarwin. Four works are then analysed in detail. These are: The Life and Letters ofCharles Darwin edited by his son Francis Darwin. (1887); Charles Darwin: Thefragmentary man by Geoffrey West (1937); Darwin and the Beagle by AlanMoorehead (1969); and Darwin by Adrian Desmond and James Moore (1991).The disparities between these works - disparities in purpose, form, and theimage of Darwin that each presents - are so great that one must question whetherbiography is a continuous, evolving family of texts. Is it not, rather, aconglomeration of approaches to life-writing - approaches which critics havegrouped into a single genre much as the ancients grouped whales with fishes, on thebasis that because certain of their structural features are analogous, they must begenerically-related? The findings of this thesis do not supply a comprehensiveanswer, but affirm that we need to re-evaluate concepts like the evolution ofbiography.In an appendix I analyse The Life of Richard Owen by R.S. Owen (1894) andthereby reconsider certain of my conclusions about Victorian biography. (Owen wasthe most eminent naturalist of the era and is often supposed to have been Darwin'sgreatest rival, hence my choice of this particular work.)

[发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand